SCENES IN AND AROUND HEIDELBERG.


_Sept. 30._--There is so much to be seen around this beautiful place,
that I scarcely know where to begin a description of it. I have been
wandering among the wild paths that lead up and down the mountain side,
or away into the forests and lonely meadows in the lap of the Odenwald.
My mind is filled with images of the romantic German scenery, whose real
beauty is beginning to displace the imaginary picture which I had
painted with the enthusiastic words of Howitt. I seem to stand now upon
the Kaiser-stuhl, which rises above Heidelberg, with that magnificent
landscape around me, from the Black Forest and Strasburg to Mainz, and
from the Vosges in France to the hills of Spessart in Bavaria. What a
glorious panorama! and not less rich in associations than in its natural
beauty. Below me had moved the barbarian hordes of old, the triumphant
followers of Arminius, and the Cohorts of Rome; and later, full many a
warlike host bearing the banners of the red cross to the Holy
Land,--many a knight returning with his vassals from the field, to lay
at the feet of his lady-love the scarf he had worn in a hundred battles
and claim the reward of his constancy and devotion. But brighter spirits
had also toiled below. That plain had witnessed the presence of Luther,
and a host who strove with him to free the world from the chains of a
corrupt and oppressive religion. There had also trodden the master
spirits of German song--the giant twain, with their scarcely less
harmonious brethren: they, too, had gathered inspiration from those
scenes--more fervent worship of nature and a deeper love for their
beautiful fatherland! Oh! what waves of crime and bloodshed have swept
like the waves of a deluge down the valley of the Rhine! War has laid
his mailed hand on those desolate towers and ruthlessly torn down what
time has spared, yet he could not mar the beauty of the shore, nor could